


Comfort and Joy

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: the pageant of Ajax [1]
Category: HEYER Georgette - Works, The Unknown Ajax - Georgette Heyer
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Multi, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 18:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13370409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: "Health and wealth," Vincent said in disgust, and sneezed violently. "I cannot recall why I ever considered returning to the Weald, much less at this repellent time of year.""It is a trifling cold," Anthea said, with no sympathy whatsoever, collapsing comfortably into an armchair next to Vincent's sopha. "And you would not have caught it if you hadn't been such a fool with that phaeton of yours."***Vincent takes a tumble and catches a cold; his hosts take good care of him.Well, Hugo does, anyway.





	Comfort and Joy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).



> Desertvixen, I didn't think this OT3 was a Thing, and then I wrote it and I was convinced, and now I'm rereading the book and I'm enchanted.

"Health and wealth," Vincent said in disgust, and sneezed violently. "I cannot recall why I ever considered returning to the Weald, much less at this repellent time of year."

"It is a trifling cold," Anthea said, with no sympathy whatsoever, collapsing comfortably into an armchair next to Vincent's sopha. "And you would not have caught it if you hadn't been such a fool with that phaeton of yours."

Vincent grimaced. The trouble with excellent driving skills was that they had to be maintained, and that if they were to remain impressive additional skills must be acquired. It was not enough, for a nonpareil, simply to polish that which he already knew.

So Vincent had miscalculated the latest of his new tricks. He was rusticating in any case and the snow had been deep.

"I beg you will not tell Claud," Vincent said, and wrapped himself more thoroughly in the heavy brocade dressing gown he was currently swathed in.

Anthea pursued her lips as she poured the tea, and did not say a word one way or the other.

"No, she will not," Hugo said, closing the library door behind him. He was carrying a silver tray not unlike the one that held Anthea's tea-things. "Will you, love?"

"Not unless Vincent is particularly obnoxious," Anthea conceded. "Has the cook recovered yet?"

"From Mr Darracott in her kitchen, brewing hot whisky?" A peculiarly attractive smile caught at the corner of Hugo's wide humorous mouth, and Vincent closed his eyes to it. To be so damnably handsome was one thing, but to be thus and to be the picture of health was insufferable. "I doubt it. I passed it off as military manners."

Vincent sneezed. Anthea draped a handkerchief lovingly over his head.

"Ajax," Vincent said, rather muffled by the retrieval and use of the handkerchief, "I cannot conceive why you married my ill-mannered hoyden of a cousin."

"Wretch," Anthea said equably, drinking her tea, and nibbling fastidiously at a plate of pastries.

"Drink your hot whisky and remember," Hugo advised, handing Vincent a half-full tankard of steaming, fragrant liquid and sitting down on the end of the sopha, narrowly avoiding squashing Vincent's feet.

"I am _cold_ ," Vincent complained, warming his hands around the tankard. It was perfectly true; he felt shivering and wretched despite his dressing gown, the well-tended library fire, and the hot tankard in his hands.

"You won't be," Anthea assured him. "That - potion of Hugo's is... warming."

Vincent took a sip and blinked repeatedly. "You can't possibly have the head for this."

"I don't," said Anthea.

Vincent looked at Hugo, who smiled.

"Learned how to make it from a friend - Mackenzie. He died at Badajos, but he wrote the recipe down first." Hugo lifted his own tankard to his lips. "You'll find it warming."

"I will pass out," Vincent said. "Like a drunken sot."

"At least you'll stop talking," Anthea said philosophically, but her fingers were combing softly through his hair, and Vincent was too damnably soothed to think of a witty response.

He shot her a foul look instead, and leaned into her hand. She laughed, and Hugo smiled.

Vincent tucked his feet under Hugo's thigh. One of Hugo's large, warm hands came to rest on his ankle.

Anthea took Vincent's tankard, and had a sip of the hot whisky before handing it back.

" _You_ will pass out like a drunken sot," Vincent warned her.

"I only wanted a taste." Anthea's hand traveled down the nape of his neck, and her thumb brushed lightly over the small soft place behind his ear. "You know, if you are still this unwell tomorrow, it will be out of the question for us all to remove to Darracott Place for Christmas. And Hugo and I could not possibly leave you here alone."

Vincent took a larger gulp of the hot whisky, which he was beginning to enjoy very much; he could taste citrus, and honey, and possibly some kind of spice, but mostly he felt warmer and easier. "Your mother will be upset."

"Mama will survive. She suggested that Hugo and I might want to spend Christmas in our own home." Anthea glanced at Hugo. "I did ask if she would like to join us, but she pointed out that my grandfather has no real notion of how to run his own household, if one excludes shouting at them, and unless she wished to ruin the festive season and several of the following months -"

"Quite," Vincent said. Hugo's hand was making its way idly up his calf in a most suspicious fashion.

"We could ride over briefly," Hugo suggested. "To exchange presents. And wishes of the season." Hugo's eyes were locked with Anthea's; they were at their mildest and most bovine, which meant, in Vincent's unfortunately wide experience, that he was _plotting_. "Supposing we don't take Vincent's trifling cold. Which we might."

Vincent twisted to see Anthea's face. Her hand was now inside the collar of his shirt, and her eyes were solemn and inscrutable, which suggested to Vincent that she was _also_ plotting.

Hellfire and damnation.

But he was slowly warming right through, and he was confident that not all of that could be attributed to Hugo's brew.

"We might," Anthea echoed.

"I am ill," Vincent reminded them.

"Are you uncomfortable, Vincent?" Hugo enquired. "Bored? Inconvenienced?"

"I am neither bored nor uncomfortable, Ajax, though I am grossly inconvenienced by both you and Anthea," Vincent said. He was smiling, damn it, he knew he was. "But I am growing accustomed to it."

"You like it," Anthea said, and her smug tone was the twin to Hugo's obnoxious grin.

"I will be in my grave before I admit that," Vincent informed her, and Hugo laughed. Anthea kissed his throat, and Hugo took the tankards away.

Vincent broke that vow six separate times before the fire died down.

***

Hugo and Anthea returned from Darracott Place three hours after they had set out, with snow dusting their outer clothes, reddened cheeks and bright eyes (and presents intended to have been opened at Darracott Place, graciously conveyed to the Dower House for the attention of the convalescent).

Vincent laid down his book. "How was it?"

"Bearable," Anthea said. "My mother is well, at least, and enjoying your mother's company. Aunt Aurelia sends her love, and asks me to remind you that skill is all very well but foolishness is inexcusable."

"Oh, Lord," Vincent said. "I thought I recognised that carriage in the distance, but it drove off after I got up again, so I told myself I must have been mistaken." He glanced out of the window. "I collect the weather has turned for the worse."

"Indeed," Anthea said, sitting down on his lap. "And I very much fear Hugo has taken your cold."

Vincent raised his eyebrows at Hugo, who looked as invincible as ever. "Have you indeed, Ajax?"

Hugo's eyes were sparkling wickedly. "Achoo," he said.

None of them left the house until New Year's Day.


End file.
